Panic!
by Cleo Calliope
Summary: We all have our routines.


**Author's Note: **This is something I began ages ago and only  
recently finished. It is based off of the books - NOT the movie.  
I was attempting to answer the question never addressed in the  
books or in the radio series. Why exactly _did_ Ford take Arthur  
with him?

**Panic!**

His first memories of most of the people he'd met on earth were basically the same, that is if he remembered his first meeting with them at all. The recollection would simply be a fuzzy picture of someone looking at him with the usual expressions of surprise, amusement, and occasionally alarm or contempt as he expounded on the wonders of the wider galaxy beyond their world in drunken intensity.

And like anyone else, that was his first memory of Arthur Dent. Just another face watching him uncertainly, probably wondering whether Ford was insane or merely delusional. No more remarkable than anyone else. In fact, Arthur was even less remarkable than most of his fellow humans. To the extent that he was almost exceptional in his complete blandness... but not quite.

Ford didn't think twice about him. Arthur was quiet, nondescript, and seemed to perpetually fade into the background of any pub he entered. In the end, he became a last ditch effort to find someone to go drinking with when he didn't want to be alone and everyone else was either busy, sick of him, or insisting he owed them money he insisted he'd never borrowed. When there was absolutely no one else, Ford found he could bully Arthur into coming to the pub with him. What's more he could usually get him to pay for a few drinks as well. But he was always at the bottom of Ford's list of people, the last one called when all else failed.

He didn't think he'd ever really realized until just that morning as Ford stared at the readings on the small computer in his hand and understood just what was about to happen, that his list of people to drink with had changed itself. Bland but convenient Arthur had risen up to the top. Ford couldn't admit, even to himself, that for the most part Arthur was the list these days.

He couldn't count how many mornings he'd woken up in Arthur's guestroom after a night out. Or how many days were started on Arthur's couch when the human had been unable to lug an unconscious Ford up the stairs the previous night. Usually Arthur would be off to work already and would have left aspirin within easy reach and breakfast in the kitchen on a hot plate.

Ford would take the aspirin - it was never terribly helpful since it didn't effect him as it would a human, but it was better than nothing - and choke down some of the food. I wasn't bad food. Arthur wasn't terribly good at many things, but he couldn't be accused of being an actively bad cook. It wasn't exactly gourmet either, but it wasn't bad. It was just that... Well, it was human food. Earth food. Just another reminder he was stuck on a second rate little planet in the middle of nowhere and couldn't get off.

Finally, when he would feel able to face the world outside Arthur's drab little house - or as little unable to face it as he ever did - he'd wander off. Usually feeling too fed up with himself, the planet, and life in general bother cleaning up the dishes he'd used. He'd always know when he didn't, because Arthur would inevitably mention it in an aggrieved tone of voice the next time Ford showed up to drag him out for the night.

It had become a routine. Even Arthur's complaining had become routine. Ford didn't even bother wondering where he was any more when he woke up on the couch or in that poky little guestroom that always seemed to smell like camphor even though there was absolutely no reason that it should.

Routine. Standard. Normal.

So, when it changed...?

Ford had really remembered very little of the night when he awoke that morning, except a vague memory of wanting to see just how drunk he could get Arthur. All he knew was that he woke up the following day to a terrible headache and a ceiling he wasn't familiar with. Ford had laid staring up at it through half closed eyes wondering where the hell he was this time. After a while, he had chanced raising his head a little and quickly dropped it again as nausea swept through him. He'd closed his eyes and tried to think about the brief glimpse he'd had of the room around him. On second thought, he realized that he did recognize it from the few times he'd borrowed shirts and trousers to wear while he washed his own on a few of those mornings started in the guestroom.

He was in Arthur's bedroom. The question was, why? And where was Arthur? And speaking of clothes, where were his? Because he definitely seemed to be lacking them. And if he was here, then was Arthur in the guestroom?

A soft snore from his right said that he was not. Ford groaned inwardly. Arthur was a nice drinking buddy, mostly because he could be bullied into paying for things, but also because he listened to Ford's stories without complaint and because he rarely pestered Ford to pay him back when Ford Had Not Borrowed Money from him again. However, Ford had never once thought of Arthur in anyway beyond that. He was... nondescript, boring... not to mention human.

But there was no denying the evidence that Ford was in Arthur's bed and if that was the case than the person lying next to him was almost certainly Arthur. Because if it wasn't than that opened up a whole new realm of problems that Ford didn't feel capable of contemplating.

It was another while though before Ford could muster the enough energy and will power to turn onto his side and open his eyes again.

Arthur lay sleeping a little ways a way, and if his bare shoulders, arms and part of his chest were anything to go by, he was also missing his clothes.

Ford inwardly groaned again. This was awkward. This was very awkward.

It wasn't that he'd never woken up in strange beds before. If you drank as heavily as he did as often as he did it was bound to happen from time to time. Even if you were on Earth, not a planet known for its attractive denizens. It was that this bed wasn't totally strange that was making this particular occasion so difficult. Because instead of a stranger in it with him, it was someone he actually knew. And not just anybody he actually knew. It was the Arthur Dent he actually knew.

Just how drunk had he managed to get Arthur last night? And for that matter just how drunk had he himself been? Ford tried to think about it, but it remained a stubborn blank and he wasn't sure if he was grateful about that or not. After all, did he really want to remember what he suspected they'd done last night?

He poked Arthur's arm. "Arthur, wake up." Arthur didn't move. Ford poked him again. "Come on Arthur, we need to make tea and start forgetting this ever happened."

Arthur grunted and then turned... toward Ford. Ford froze as a still sleeping Arthur slid his arms around is waist and nuzzled in close before falling still again.

Okay, this was worse.

Unfortunately, attempts to disengage Arthur from himself only resulted in finding himself even more firmly held.

"I am not a damn teddy bear," Ford muttered sullenly. Arthur slept on, oblivious.

It wasn't that it had been comfortable, Ford always assured himself later. It was just that Arthur had been terribly persistent and Ford had still been very, very hung over. He'd intended to put a stop to all of that nonsense, of course. Just as soon as he woke up again, he'd decided as his arms settled around Arthur's sleeping form and he slipped back off into comfortable unconsciousness himself.

When he had woken again, it was to and empty bed and the smell of breakfast cooking downstairs. A robe clad Arthur had been in the kitchen holding a cup of tea and looking nervous. But somehow, that breakfast pasted like so many others and the new routine took hold without comment or conscious choice. Besides, Arthur's bed was more comfortable than the guestroom anyway. Whether this had anything to do with Arthur being in it Ford was unwilling to comment on, even to himself.

But he couldn't deny that Arthur was warm, and that he tasted sweet. And that some of his best memories of earth were of lazy mornings with him... like the time they stayed up all night not watching the Monty Python Marathon they'd planned on watching. That morning they had made an utter mess of Arthur kitchen, but somehow Arthur had managed to teach Ford how to make American style pancakes.

He'd still checked for passing ships each morning, as he had every morning since he'd first landed on this rock of a planet, looking for a way off. But he found he could no longer think of Arthur when he checked. Eventually, he'd leave this backwater of a planet and never look back.

Well, for a little while anyway. Maybe he'd borrow a spaceship at some point and come back for a visit, to show Arthur that all his stories weren't delusions after all. Just to prove the point, of course. It wasn't as though he miss him or anything.

Except... except...

This was different.

Ford stared down at the Thumb in his hands in shocked horror. There was no mistaking the Vogon constructor fleet heading dirrectly for Earth.

There would be no visits back.

And there would be no him to not visit back if he didn't get a move on quickly.

He hastily grabbed his few things together from the little room he'd currently been living in and tried not to think about anything but getting away.

Tried not to think about pancakes and smoky pubs and lazy mornings and Monty Python.

There was nothing he could do about any of it. If he wanted to be alive a couple hours from now, there was nothing he could do but run.

But he found himself running, not toward the pub to begin getting himself ready for space travel, but toward Arthur's house.

A stupid, backwards human would never be able to make it in the larger galaxy. There was no possible way! But... but.. But there was no point in arguing with a decision that he seemed to have made without his own consent.

He was finally getting off this crummy little planet - and he was taking Arthur Dent with him.

"Damn," he said under his breath as he ran faster toward Arthur's house.

The End.


End file.
